Eine Romanze für Nightcrawler
by Solitaire
Summary: The title means "A Romance of Nightcrawler"-- and that's exactly what this is.


Eine Romanze von Nightcrawler  


  
Summary: Excalibur has just been formed, the X-Men are believed dead. Shadowcat and Nightcrawler are good friends, but could they possibly be something more?  
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Wish I did. Would be rich. But am not now. So don't sue.  
Author's Note: This is something I've seen demands for a lot (some of which have been my own) so I decided to give it a shot. I don't normally write romance, I haven't read too many comics, and I'm finishing this up at 2 in the morning, so forgive me if this sucks. Oh and I don't speak German. Luckily, I have a friend who does. Thanks Lana!  
  


~*~  


  
Kurt Wagner cleared out his drawers, dumping their contents into a suitcase. Shirts, pants, and toiletries piled up messily. He didn't care. He needed to get out of there. Muir Island was fast becoming a hell.  
  
They'd just started this all two weeks ago, he and Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers, joined by Brian Braddock and Meggan. They were forming a new team, Excalibur, to continue Charles Xavier's dream of peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans. It was necessary, now that the impossible had become possible: the X-Men had died.  
  
Kurt himself had been in a coma on Muir Island. He woke up, and they were dead. His friends. His family. Dead.   
  
But not Kitty. Das Kätzchen. She was alive, but not very well. She'd taken the deaths very hard, especially Colossus's. Peter Rasputin had broken up with her, but she still loved him. Kurt thought that breaking up with Kitty was perhaps the single stupidest thing that the Russian had ever done. She was a lovely girl, and didn't deserve to be put through such things as this.  
  
She had cried on Kurt's shoulder too many times to count. She claimed to have horrifying, graphic dreams of their deaths. It was common for her to wake Kurt in the middle of the night, shaking and crying, disheveled appearance demanding comfort. Which he freely gave.  
  
He continued packing. His eyes fell on his worn copy of the bible and his rosary beads. He stopped, and kneeled habitually at the foot of his bed. But none of the practiced prayers came. _Mein Gott, why did all this have to happen? The X-Men were good people, were they not? Why did you have to take them? Why did you leave us behind? Why did you not take me, instead? Why-  
_  
"Kurt?" She had phased through the door, feeling free to enter without a knock.  
  
He stood quickly. "Kätzchen."  
  
"Kurt, are you okay? Are you… are you _crying_?"  
  
"Nein, nein. Of course not, Kätzchen." The X-Man- no, member of Excalibur- known as Nightcrawler did not cry. "You are mistaken," he told her as he wiped a tear from a blue-furred cheek with the back of a three-fingered hand.  
  
She noticed the suitcase. "Where are you planning to go?"  
  
He said nothing for a long while. Then, finally, he answered. "Germany."  
  
"Kurt, you can't! We just- everything was starting to work, and- _why_?"  
  
"I can't stay here! I can't look at Brian without seeing Betsy. I can't look at Rachel without thinking how much she looks like her mutter und vater- and I certainly cannot call her _Phoenix_!" He began to pace around the room, tail twitching in a show of frustration. "Here we are, doing the same as the X-Men did. I can't pretend to be the same person I was before. I can't pretend like it never happened. And what if something happens to Excalibur?" _If something happens to_ you. "If I am left behind once more while everyone I care about has died…" he trailed off.  
  
"Kurt, I understand how you feel. But we have to keep trying. We can't just give up. Isn't that what you've been telling me for the past two weeks?"  
  
"I'm not giving up, I'm-"  
  
"-giving up. Come on, we're friends, we'll help each other through this." She gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "It doesn't suit you to be so moody, Fuzzy Elf. Now come on, it's time for dinner."  
  
_Ja. Meine freunde. Meine guter freunde… nichts mehr._ {Yes. My friend. My good friend… nothing more.} He followed behind her reluctantly, but the suitcase remained packed.  
  


~*~  


  
Brian was drunk.  
  
That much was obvious, speech already thick with British accent slurring into an indecipherable mush. Unfortunately, this was not an uncommon occurrence.  
  
_If only our enemies saw the great Captain Britain now_, Kurt thought. _They would laugh until they cried. _ He tried to ignore the man, instead half concentrating on twirling his fork with his tail, and half on not meeting Kitty's warm brown eyes from across the table.  
  
"Perhaps you should get some rest, Brian," Meggan was instructing, soothingly. "Go on to bed. I'll bring you some coffee."  
  
Rachel wore a mask of intense concentration. She was probably trying to suggest the same, telepathically.  
  
"No… We need… ateammeetingg. 'M… th'leada…of… th'team…"  
  
"Brian…" continued Meggan, putting a loving arm around him which he promptly shrugged off.  
  
"Team meetingg…" Captain Britain stood up and explained a long and preposterous plan to battle a nonexistent enemy, leaning on the table for support the whole time.  
  
"Yes dear, that's a fine plan," Meggan told him, patting his shoulder. "Now why don't you go to bed."  
  
""M not finished…"  
  
Kurt was sick of all this. "Is scheisse plan," he stated flatly.  
  
"What?" Brian was furious. "You want… fight m', Elf-man?"  
  
Nightcrawler looked as though he were half-considering it, but instead shook his head. "Nein. Nein, I'll just- I'll go." He got up from his crouching position, and left, forced to use the door instead of teleport.   
  


~*~  


  
The remaining Excalibur members, save the rambling Brian, stared at the seat where Kurt had just sat. He hadn't said anything that the others didn't want to say… but Brian was just like that sometimes. He had to be gotten used to.  
  
"I'll go talk to him," volunteered Kitty.  
  
Rachel nodded. "That's a good idea. He could use a talk from a… friend… right now," she said with a knowing smile.  
  
Kitty rolled her eyes. "Don't even start with me, Ray." Her friend had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that perhaps the two should quote-unquote "hook up." And that "such advice from a telepath should not be ignored."  
  
Well, it _was _ignored.  
  
Mostly ignored, anyway.  
  
Kitty phased through the dining room wall and spotted him in front of the television set in the nearby living room. Kurt crouched on the sofa, head in his hands.  
  
"Kurt? Hey, you feeling okay?" she called out, trying to be conversational, though it pained her to see what he was going through. What they all were going through.  
  
"Ja, Ich bin super," he replied sarcastically.  
  
"No, really." She sat down next to him, leaning her head against his furry shoulder. He seemed to become… nervous, almost, as if he were afraid to breathe. _ Perhaps there is something to all of Rachel's theories… _Kitty fully considered that possibility, then discounted it. _No, of course not…_  
  
"I don't know… this team is falling apart before it forms. I can't teleport anymore… everything is… Everything scheisse. Not just Brian's drunk rambling. Everything."  
  
"Not _everything_, Kurt. You and me… this isn't… this isn't shit."  
  
He tensed. "No… no it isn't." His words were spoken slowly and clearly.  
  
The silence between them was heavy and uncomfortable.  
  
"So, I, um, just wanted to make sure you were okay and all, uh, yeah. I mean, we all thought that you and Brian were going to have it out for a minute there, and, uh, yeah," Kitty managed, edging away from her blue-furred friend.   
  
"Yes. Well, danke, Kätzchen, I appreciate your… concern." He, too, seemed to be creeping away from their once-cozy half-embrace.  
  
"Okay. Good night, then."  
  
"Gute Nacht."  
  


~*~  


  
_Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin was dying.  
  
He was dying, right there, at her feet, begging for her to help him, to take away the pain, to do anything, just please don't let him die like this. _Please, Katya._  
  
_Katya… ya lyublyu tebya…_ He coughed horribly, bringing up dark bloody phlegm. _Da svidanya, Katya… da svidanya… {Kitty… I love you… Goodbye, Kitty… goodbye…}  
  
"Peter!" she cried. Her voice echoed around her empty room. Peter wasn't there. He wasn't in pain.  
  
But he really was dead.  
  
It was a wonder that her dried eyes could produce any more tears after the past couple weeks. But they could, and they proved testimony to that fact now. Dark, awful sobs that shook her body and her soul alike wracked her thin body as she clutched her blankets to her chest as if they could save her.   
  
She got up, habitually going to Kurt for a quick hug and comforting words. But for some reason, she felt strange about doing this, and hesitated. _I've bothered him enough. He probably just wants me to leave him alone._ That would be why he had been acting so odd around her as of lately.   
  
She prepared to turn back to her bed, to try to get some sleep that actually rested her, but the memory of the dying Colossus was still freshly burned into her mind.  
  
_I'll just… see if he's up. If he is, then I'll stay and talk. If not, then I'll come back to bed. I won't wake him up, I won't bother him…_  
  
She phased through her door and floated down the hallway, remaining insubstantial until she passed Kurt's door.  
  
She knocked, softly.  
  
No answer.  
  
So she phased partially in, expecting to see his blue form curled up, fast asleep.  
  
The room was empty.  
  
She remembered the packed suitcase.  
  
The packed suitcase which was no longer present in the room.  
_  
"Where are you planning to go?"  
  
"Germany."_  
  
She cascaded through the air of the hallway, phasing through anything that got in her way, phasing out of the building, into the night air, coasting through the chilly England air, not caring that she was only in her pajamas, but not having to travel far because there was a car at the end of the driveway, being driven by a certain fuzzy-elf mutant who was about to be the subject of a certain Shadowcat's anger.  
  
She returned to her solid form in front of the car.   
  
Nightcrawler slammed on the brakes, yelling several German curses. "I could have killed you!" he told her angrily, getting out of the car.  
  
"You might as well _have_," she muttered. "What are you doing this for? You can't leave me!"  
  
"I told you before. I can't stay here."  
  
"But what about me?"  
  
"What about you, Kätzchen?"  
  
"I… I don't want you to leave," she said lamely.  
  
"What do I have to stay for? Xavier's dream? I'm not sure how much I believe in that anymore. I just… I want to go home."  
  
Kitty stared down at the gravel, then back up at Kurt, grabbing his arm. "Then at least take me with you."  
  
He froze. "_What_?"  
  
She hesitated a little, disconcerted by his intense yellow gaze. "…take me with you."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean… don't leave me here, please, Kurt. I don't… I hardly know Brian and Meggan, I know Rachel, but… please don't leave me, Kurt," she begged.  
  
He turned away. "Why does it matter to you if I leave you?"  
  
"Because I care about you. Because…"  
  
"Because we are friends?" he asked, the harshness of his tone surprising Kitty.  
  
She didn't know how to answer that. "Because… after everything that has happened, I wouldn't be able to…" She shook her head and tried again. "Because I… God damn it, Kurt, I need you. I need you in my life." There, she'd said it. _Your move._  
  
"Nein, Kätzchen, you are confused. You are confused in your head because Peter has died, and since I was here for you, you think-"  
  
She shook her head, cutting him off. "It's not that. It's not that at all, Kurt. I-"  
  
"Perhaps it is best if I do go. You can sort out all of your confusion, then I come back feeling much better, we will be friends and everything will be how it was before."  
  
"Don't you understand, Kurt?" She grabbed him by the shoulders, staring straight into his eyes. "Things will _never _be the same as they were before."  
  
He dropped his gaze to the ground. "I know that. But I wish that they could. Mein Gott, I wish that they could."  
  
"Maybe we can make the best of what we have now," Kitty suggested, leaning up to kiss him softly.  
  
He smiled. "Maybe we can, Kätzchen. Maybe we can."  
  


~*~  



End file.
